A Brief History

The world of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) is not as
easily found in our history unlike that of Edison or
Einstein. Tesla was probably the greatest scientist and
visionary of the past victorian and modern industrial age.
Our world today which is run by electricity, illuminated with
discharge lamps and connected through the air with radio
"waves", includes and is derived from many of his
inventions. Yet still only a trace of Tesla's life and works
reside in our popular books.

Always at odds with Edison, a young Tesla became
the creative drive behind the Westinghouse Company at the
turn of the century. The 1893 "Columbian
Exposition" with the Westinghouse and Tesla exhibits,
was a marvel for all to view. Edison's DC standards proved no
match for the power plants at Niagara Falls and the globe was
soon electrified by Tesla's AC Polyphase System. Nikola Tesla
was granted more than 700 United States patents during his
career and it was not uncommon for many of his discoveries to
lead to developments of which other scientists were honored,
like the photoflash, x-ray or radio. Tesla discovered many of
the principles for radio, of which Marconi was renowned for
years later.

Many believed Tesla continued to work on his energy
beam weapon and massive ELF experiments up until his death.
These experiments have been described so vividly in the press
and may continue to this day. Nikola Tesla died alone on
January 7th, 1943 in his room at the Hotel New Yorker,
although far from destitute. All of his remaining notes and
apparatus, filling many truckloads, were confiscated by the
U.S. Government and put in storage. The Tesla museum in
Belgrade houses the the most complete and permanent
collection of his life's studies. A vivid book, "Man out
of Time" by Margaret Cheney should be your first venture
to discover Tesla.

"I had a veritable mania
for finishing whatever I began, which often got me into
difficulties.

On one occasion I started to
read the works of Voltaire when I learned, to my dismay,
that there were close on one hundred large volumes in
small print which that monster had written while drinking
seventy-two cups of black coffee per diem.

It had to be done, but when I
laid aside the last book I was very glad, and said, Never
more!"

The Wardenclyffe Tower

Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions: the
autobiography of Nikola Tesla", Hart Bros., 1982.
Originally appeared in the Electrical experimenter
magazine in 1919.